Brave cancer girl Ayesha, 8, raises a massive £172,000 for charity

THE Siddiqui family live week-to-week awaiting test results to see how their eight-year-old daughter Ayesha’s fight with leukaemia is progressing - but brave Ayesha has shrugged off almost two years of illness to lead an incredible fundraising drive to help others too.

WHEN your child has a serious illness, you live for the day and cherish every single moment.

That’s even more true for the Siddiqui family, who live week-to-week awaiting test results to see how their eight-year-old daughter Ayesha’s fight with leukaemia is progressing.

But
despite almost two years of illness, hair loss and chemotherapy, Ayesha
has kept smiling and somehow found the strength to not just battle cancer, but lead a fundraising drive to help others too.

A year ago, Ayesha and her parents Noreen and Nadeem launched an appeal to support bone marrow charity Anthony Nolan.

Their efforts now stand at £172,000, making the amazing schoolgirl one of the biggest single fundraisers in the history of the charity.

Catherine
Miles, the director of fundraising at Anthony Nolan, said: “Ayesha’s Appeal will have a massive impact on our lifesaving work.

“For many people with blood cancer, a transplant from a matching donor is their last chance of life.

“But
we can only find a match for half of those who come to us in desperate need. It costs us £100 to add each donor to the bone marrow register, so
these funds will enable us to grow our register to help increase the number of lives we can save.”

Ayesha has been nominated for a Daily Record Our Heroes Award.

The Record is staging the 10th annual event with a star-studded bash in the Glasgow Hilton on May 10.

Little
Hero nominee Ayesha, who has endured 18 months of chemo that has seen her lose her hair four times, may need a transplant if her condition does not improve. It’s been a busy year for the family, who are today holding a bone marrow donor drive at Glasgow Caledonian University, where her mum Noreen is a senior lecturer in marketing.

They
hope to encourage as many people as possible to join the register, which involves filling in a form and spitting into a test tube.

The
Siddiquis are trying to encourage people from all backgrounds to sign up but are particularly keen to recruit ethnic minority donors as they are under-represented on the bone marrow register.

Anthony
Nolan chief executive Henny Braund said: “Ayesha is an incredibly brave
girl. Her story has inspired hundreds of people to join our register of
lifesaving donors to help us make more matches and save more lives. We’re thrilled to hear that she’s been nominated for the Daily Record’s Little Hero award. Ayesha is a very deserving candidate.”

Noreen
said: “Everything is going OK but the reality of everyday living for us
is that we don’t know what will happen a few months down the line.

“It’s
soul-destroying and we get through it all because we cope by trying not
to think about it too much, and keep ourselves busy .

“It’s Ayesha who keeps us going. She has been amazing and we are so proud of the way she has handled everything.

“The
campaign has taken up a lot of time but it’s been amazing to see so many people support it, from big donors to kids in the street.

“We
are now aiming for £200,000 and are very grateful to everyone who has helped. The donor drive today is part of a strategy to target potential donors all over the country. Donors need to be aged between 16 and 30.

“We have held donor drives in the mosque in Glasgow before but we want to expand to universities in Scotland and England.

”We’d
also like to get celebrities like Zayn Malik from One Direction and Amir Khan, who are young people from the Asian community who could come on board and help.”

Noreen,
48, and husband Nadeem, 51, an oncologist who has spent his career fighting cancer in others, were stunned when Ayesha was diagnosed last Easter. She had to start a cycle of strong chemo immediately, with treatments every 10 weeks. That was then changed to a milder chemo every
four weeks from this summer, which has allowed her to get to school.

“Ayesha
thinks she is getting better and the best thing is that she has been able to get back to school,” said Noreen. “She really loves school and the Brownies.

“She has to go for weekly clinics to get blood tests and we give her some chemo at home, so it helps that her dad is a medic. There are also constant heart
and liver scans, and we also need to monitor her height as one of the chemo treatments can stunt growth.

“Ayesha
is very clued up, she knows her medical regime better than me or her dad, and reminds us which day she gets which medicine, even though she takes up to 15 tablets a day.

“She copes brilliantly.

“The hardest part is that we don’t know what will happen. The uncertainty is terrible.”

The courageous Scots girl has been doing a great job at the heart of all the charity work.

Ayesha
has the Philadelphia chromosome positive variant of acute lymphoblastic
leukaemia and Noreen said: “Ayesha might need a bone marrow transplant but it is important that we do whatever we can to help her if she needs a
transplant, and other kids and families in our position.

“A
lot of people are unsure about bone marrow donation because they think it is a serious surgical thing but these days it is not much more than giving blood as they can use stem cells.

“It doesn’t take much time or effort
and Anthony Nolan look after your care and expenses so it doesn’t affect your life. However, the difference it makes is incredible.”

The donor drive is in the Saltire Building at Glasgow Caledonian University, 11.30am to 3pm today.